Tobacco firm accused of Iraqi arms deal: French TV programme alleges mysterious international company was key player in shipment of 9 million anti-personnel mines, which were used in the Gulf War. Chris Blackhurst reports

CHRIS BLACKHURST

Thursday, 18 November 1993

A MYSTERIOUS international tobacco company, which has an office in Britain and enjoyed close ties to the security services, was accused last night of being a key player in the supply of arms to Iraq.

The respected French television programme Marche du Siecle said that the company, Casalee, based in Luxembourg and with a large branch in Berkshire, acted as an intermediary for a huge shipment of mines to Iraq in 1986.

About 9 million of the anti-personnel mines, which explode when stepped upon, were sent to Iraq and used by the Iraqis during the war with Iran, the Gulf war and the attacks on the Kurds.

The mines were made by Valsella, an Italian company, and were paid for by BNL, the Italian bank that acted for Iraq on many arms contracts. They were shipped to Iraq via Singapore.

According to the French programme and also a new book, Spider's Web - Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit, by Alan Friedman, Casalee put the deal together for the Iraqis. An Italian called Mario Fallani acted as the firm's Middle East man.

Casalee has long been suspected of being a 'front company', closely involved with the Western intelligence services. In April 1984, a deputation of Arab League foreign ministers informed the Belgian government that the company, which had a strong presence in the country, should cease supplying arms to Iran.

When contacted, Casalee protested it was merely trading in tobacco. However, an arms trader, Ruy Mendes Franco, was able to produce a catalogue from the company listing a range of items made by the South African firm Armscor and the Israeli defence contractor Israeli Military Industries.

One of the items was the South African 155mm artillery gun developed for Armscor by Gerald Bull, the 'Supergun' inventor.

Two senior executives allegedly involved in the British end of Casalee's arms supply business were John Bredenkamp and Robert Jolly. Mr Bredenkamp is based at Casalee's offices at Hurst, Berkshire. A Rhodesian national, he worked for Casalee in Britain until 1979. He spent most of the next decade working for Casalee overseas. He returned to Britain in 1990, and set up Casalee Services, which in its first 17 months' existence had a turnover of pounds 42m.

Robert Jolly left Casalee in 1987 to join the arms company BMARC, later taken over by Astra, the ammunition supplier. He now works for Heckler and Koch, part of British Aerospace.

A spokesman for Casalee in Berkshire said last night that he could not comment on the claims.

Earlier this year, the company was taken over by the American conglomerate, Universal Group. Mr Bredenkamp, the spokesman said, was travelling and could not be contacted.

John ...www.thezimbabwean.co.uk, 5 July 2009 [cached]John Bredenkamp ...Top of the list of alleged Mugabe cronies now under sanction by the US Treasury is the British-based businessman John Bredenkamp. ...By contrast, the US Treasury last month named four financier cronies - Mr Bredenkamp, Muller Conrad Billy Rautenbach, Nalinee Joy Taveesin and Mahmood Awang Kechik - of Mr Mugabe and put them on a blacklist, freezing their US assets and banning American citizens from doing business with them. ...Mr Bredenkamp has been granted indefinite leave to remain in Britain, and operates some of his businesses from an office in Berkshire. Mr Bredenkamp, 68, was born in Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia, and is one of the coterie of Rhodies, or white Rhodesians with British connections, whose influence has grown under Mr Mugabe. ...Mr Bredenkamp's spokesman issued a point-by-point denial, saying: Breco [a company he controls] does not trade in tobacco. At 'free' auctions, it purchases tobacco from the producers and adds value through cigarette manufacturing. Mr Bredenkamp is a passive investor in ACS, an accredited agent to major Western defence and aerospace companies who are regulated by their own governments. ACS does not operate, therefore, in the grey market. Alongside the likes of Shell and BP, who have major networks of petrol retail outlets in Zimbabwe, Breco supplies petroleum products, purchased from the State Oil Company by law, to a mere five retail outlets. It also has a small bulk fuel distribution business whose clients include Unicef. Mr Bredenkamp has never been involved in the exploration or extraction of diamonds. In 1993 Mr Bredenkamp made an estimated $100 million selling his Casalee tobacco company, and set up Breco, a private equity group now on the US blacklist. His spokesman said: Mr Bredenkamp recently received notification from the US Treasury that he was on the OFAC list. He wishes to make it clear that he is challenging that decision on the grounds that it is based on erroneous information. Mr Bredenkamp strongly disputes any suggestion he gives the regime funds to help Mr Mugabe to cling to power. His spokesman said: Just because he is a Zimbabwean and is based in Zimbabwe and has a business in Zimbabwe does not mean he provides the Zanu (PF) regime with funds. He employs around 1,500 people in his businesses in Zimbabwe - their remuneration supports approximately 6,000 people. Is he meant to quit and put all these people out of work? ...Asked what action Britain would take against Mr Bredenkamp, a spokesman for HM Treasury told The Times: We are considering a range of measures with EU partners in response to the continuing impasse in Zimbabwe, including further targeted measures. ...John Bredenkamp A close ally of Mugabe's, according to the US Treasury.

John Bredenkamp - appointed ...www.hatnews.org [cached]John Bredenkamp - appointed rugby captain in 1965, the same year Smith announced Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain - and 18 of his companies were blacklisted by the EU on 27 January 2009 for his "strong ties to the Government of Zimbabwe ... [and providing], including through his companies, financial and other support to the [Zimbabwe] regime." ...The sanctions against Bredenkamp, 68, and Muller Conrad (Billy) Rautenbach, 50, said by the EU to have "strong ties to the Government of Zimbabwe, including through support to senior regime officials during Zimbabwe's intervention in DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo]" - mark the beginning of a strategy to isolate those seen as propping up President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government. ...Bredenkamp was ranked among Britain's richest people in 2002, with an estimated fortune of US$1 billion. According to the website of one of his blacklisted companies, Breco, he is living in Zimbabwe, having left Britain in 2000. He "was imprisoned by the Zimbabwe Government in 2006 for alleged passport violations [though he was subsequently acquitted in court] and has recently had his passport withheld by that Government," the website said. The EU said Bredenkamp had three passports: one from the Netherlands (expired), one from Zimbabwe and one from Surinam, a former Dutch colony. Bredenkamp reportedly fell foul of Mugabe in his attempts as king-maker in 2004. ...Bredenkamp was born in South Africa. "I was a Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean. I was a tobacco merchant; I am now an investor in many different sectors," Bredenkamp says on the Breco website. Photo: Wikipedia John Bredenkamp As a "tobacco merchant", Bredenkamp founded the Casalee Group of companies, which focused primarily on leaf tobacco, in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1976; it also engaged in general trading, with branches in a multitude of countries and tobacco-processing factories in the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, Malawi and Brazil. By 1993 it had become the world's fifth largest leaf tobacco merchant and was bought for $100 million by the world's largest leaf tobacco company, Universal Leaf Tobacco. Brian Murphy, a former Casalee executive in Zimbabwe, said of Bredenkamp in an interview with Sports Illustrated in 1996: "he's always been an arms dealer." ...Bredenkamp has consistently denied the arms dealer moniker, although a British investigative television programme, broadcast in 1994, claimed that one of his companies sold anti-aircraft guns to Iraq and land mines to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. ...In the 1970s, Bredenkamp reportedly broke sanctions imposed by the UN against the white minority government during the liberation war by supplying spare parts for the Hawker Hunter ground-attack aircraft of the Rhodesian air force. These aircraft also saw service during Zimbabwe's intervention in the DRC in the late 1990s. "We tend to stay out of politics and get on with our everyday business, but we have to work with governments of the day, just like multinationals the world over - it is naive to suggest that other courses are open to us. It is only by having good working relations with the Zimbabwean government, built up over the last 22 years, that I have been able to engage in constructive criticism," Bredenkamp says on the Breco website.

Congo Kinshasa Documents - Govt's and Zimbabwe's illegal resource exploitationwww.afrol.com, 5 Nov 2002 [cached]31. The techniques used by Mr. Forrest have since been replicated by Zimbabwean-backed entrepreneurs John Arnold Bredenkamp and Mr. Al-Shanfari....Mr. Bredenkamp, who has an estimated personal net worth of over $500 million, is experienced in setting up clandestine companies and sanctions-busting operations....39. Tremalt Ltd., represented by Mr. Bredenkamp, holds the rights to exploit six Gécamines concessions containing over 2.7 million tons of copper and 325,000 tons of cobalt over 25 years.Tremalt paid the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo just $400,000, but the estimated worth of the six concessions exceeds $1 billion.The joint venture running the concession is the Kababankola Mining Company, in which Tremalt has an 80 per cent share to Gécamines' 20 per cent. Under this agreement, the Panel has learned that Gécamines derives no direct financial benefit.Although Tremalt representatives told the Panel that they have invested $15 million to date, there are no signs of substantial investments having been made on the concessions, nor has any schedule of investment in the form of a business plan been released to Gécamines. 40. Like Oryx, Tremalt insists that its operations are not linked to ZDF or the Government of Zimbabwe.However, the Panel has obtained a copy of the confidential profit-sharing agreement, under which Tremalt retains 32 per cent of net profits, and undertakes to pay 34 per cent of net profits to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and 34 per cent to Zimbabwe....Meeting monthly, the forum's main members are General Zvinavashe, Brigadier Moyo, Air Commodore Karakadzai, Mr. Bredenkamp, the Managing Director of KMC, Colin Blythe-Wood, and the Director of KMC, Gary Webster. ...Tremalt Ltd. (John Bredenkamp) 46. Tremalt's 80 per cent stake in KMC gives it management control over day-to-day administration and longer-term strategic decisions about exploiting the concession.Tremalt also procures equipment for ZDF and the Congolese Armed Forces (FAC), the cost of which it deducts from their share of KMC profits....In one example, on 13 March 2000, Oryx officials in Kinshasa loaded an aircraft belonging to Mr. Bredenkamp with eight crates of Congolese francs for shipment to Harare.The Panel also has documentation substantiating information that an Oryx employee regularly transported parcels of United States dollars ($500,000 at a time) that were withdrawn from the Oryx account at Hambros Bank, London, to Kinshasa without declaring them to the Congolese authorities; at Kinshasa the money was changed into Congolese francs and further transported to Harare and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo....56. John Bredenkamp, who has a history of clandestine military procurement, has an investment in Aviation Consultancy Services Company (ACS).The Panel has confirmed, independently of Mr. Bredenkamp, that this company represents British Aerospace, Dornier of France and Agusta of Italy in Africa.Far from being a passive investor in ACS as Tremalt representatives claimed, Mr. Bredenkamp actively seeks business using high-level political contacts.In discussions with senior officials he has offered to mediate sales of British Aerospace military equipment to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.Mr. Bredenkamp's representatives claimed that his companies observed European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe, but British Aerospace spare parts for ZDF Hawk jets were supplied early in 2002 in breach of those sanctions.Mr. Bredenkamp also controls Raceview Enterprises, which supplies logistics to ZDF.The Panel has obtained copies of Raceview invoices to ZDF dated 6 July 2001 for deliveries worth $3.5 million of camouflage cloth, batteries, fuels and lubricating oil, boots and rations.It also has copies of invoices for aircraft spares for the Air Force of Zimbabwe worth another $3 million. Case study of a commercial chain involving diamonds 57. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-Zimbabwe joint venture Minerals Business Company represents Zimbabwe's interests in the lucrative diamond trade of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

THE MEMORANDUM OF MISUNDERSTANDING: TAPIWA MUTEMACHANI | Wafawarova Writeswww.rwafawarova.com, 10 Oct 2009 [cached]Over the past 28 years of Mugabe's rule leading entrepreneurs such as the gregarious British businessman Roland "Tiny" Rowland, the somewhat eccentric Nicholas van Hoogstraten, also British, John Arnold Bredenkamp, who constantly parries accusations of arms dealing, and Conrad Muller "Billy" Rautenbach who took care of Zanu-PF financial interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have forged strong alliances with the Zanu-PF leadership, Mugabe himself included. ...Another strategic Zanu-PF ally, wealthy businessman, John Arnold Bredenkamp, has publicly expressed his open support for the Mugabe regime. He told the Zimbabwe Independent that because of his vast business interests and extensive travel experience he had become a friend of politicians and he had no regrets about it. He said he sincerely believed that it was in the "best interests of Zimbabwe for Zanu-PF to win the presidential elections next year". ...Reports in the international media have consistently referred to Bredenkamp, as an "arms broker," "arms dealer," "arms merchant," "weapons dealer," "weapons broker". Challenged by Bredenkamp to substantiate allegations of arms dealing against him, one British publication, Executive Intelligence Review, defended itself haughtily. "In describing the charmed life of John Arnold Bredenkamp," the editor wrote, "it is difficult to know where to start. In fact, it is difficult to find a media reference to him that does not mention his business in arms trafficking. From the London Observer, to the Washington Times, to the Guardian of the U.K., to WorldNet Daily, to the UN Association of the United Kingdom, to a broad swath of British-based organizations and NGOs that specialize in opposing arms proliferation, Bredenkamp is repeatedly mentioned in the context of arms trafficking - selling, brokering, and violating sanctions. Bredenkamp gained his reputation as a shrewd "sanctions buster" while supporting the racist regime of rebel Rhodesian leader Ian Smith. ..."Like many of my contemporaries, I have adapted to change," Bredenkamp says. "I was Rhodesian; I am now a Zimbabwean. I was a tobacco merchant; I am now an investor in many different sectors." When the George W. Bush administration imposed sanctions against Zimbabwe and Mugabe in 2001, Bredenkamp was reported to be among Zimbabwe's businessmen included on the sanctions list. ...On February 18, 2000, The Washington Times published a report that the DRC and Zimbabwe were purchasing arms from Bredenkamp, who was said to be based in Belgium. After independence Bredenkamp, indeed, left Zimbabwe and moved his base of operations to Belgium. A report submitted to the United Nations Security Council in October 2002 by a panel of experts investigating the exploitation of raw materials in the DRC cited Bredenkamp's role as an arms broker: "John Bredenkamp, who has a history of clandestine military procurement, has an investment in Aviation Consultancy Services Company (ACS). The Panel has confirmed, independently of Mr. Bredenkamp, that this company represents British Aerospace, Dornier of France and Agusta of Italy in Africa. Far from being a passive investor in ACS as Tremalt representatives claimed, Mr. Bredenkamp actively seeks business using high-level political contacts. "Mr. Bredenkamp's representatives claimed that his companies observed European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe, but British Aerospace spare parts for ZDF Hawk jets were supplied early in 2002 in breach of those sanctions. Mr. Bredenkamp also controls Raceview Enterprises, which supplies logistics to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. The Panel has obtained copies of Raceview invoices to ZDF dated 6 July 2001 for deliveries worth $3.5 million of camouflage cloth, batteries, fuels and lubricating oil, boots and rations. It also has copies of invoices for aircraft spares for the Air Force of Zimbabwe worth another $3 million." Bredenkamp protested the findings of the UN panel. ...Could Bredenkamp now be facilitating the survival of Zanu-PF as Mugabe clings to power? On his return to Zimbabwe in 1984 after he made peace with the country's new rulers, he remained involved in commodity trading and defence procurement while making himself generally useful to government and Zanu-PF. Using Zimbabwe as his base, Bredenkamp conducted business dealings elsewhere in Africa and in the Middle East. Not only did Bredenkamp become extremely wealthy, he also helped sustain the Zimbabwean economy in a period of some turbulence. Bredenkamp made strategic inroads into the post-independence political establishment while gaining considerable clout in the economic affairs of Zimbabwe. ...It is alleged, however, that Bredenkamp may have played a significant role in the events surrounding Zimbabwe's costly and suicidal intervention in the West African nation between 1998 and 2003. The Zimbabwean army and air force were deployed to shore up the Laurent Kabila government in its fight with rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda. In return generous mining concessions were granted by the DRC to key figures in the Zimbabwe political and business elite. It is alleged that Bredenkamp and his Zanu-PF allies were major beneficiaries. Mnangagwa has been the key Bredenkamp ally in Zanu-PF since the businessman's return from Belgium in 1984. In fact, it is also alleged that Bredenkamp became something of a power behind the scenes in Zanu-PF. Sources say he overplayed his hand, however, when he sought to facilitate the early retirement of Mugabe in 2004 and his replacement by Mnangagwa. This displeased rival politicians in the party and government and investigations were instituted into the affairs of Bredenkamp's Breco trading company concerning tax evasion and exchange control violations. ...Strangely, Kabila then invited Bredenkamp, another Zimbabwean businessman with impeccable Zanu-PF credentials, to take over some of Rautenbach's seized assets. ...Miraculously, after Bredenkamp invested in excess of US$15 million to open the Mukondo deposit, said to be the richest cobalt mine in the world, Rautenbach was back on the scene early in 2004.

He (Bredenkamp) affected these primarily through the Breco Company registered in Zimbabwe. Now, the manner in which Bredenkamp got himself involved in the commercial affairs of the country is pretty interesting. During the Bush War, in the 1970s, he was involved in the finances of the Rhodesian armed forces. He used this opportunity to broker the export sales of the Rhodesian products, primarily tobacco. He then used the money generated for the purchase of the military equipments. Though they reportedly busted the UN sanctions, they were not illegal under the Rhodesian law. His transfer of the operations in Belgium contributed to the sustenance of the Zimbabwean economy in the times of crises during the 1980s. He later built a personal fortune of $1billion.

He has also run full-page display ads (outside rear-cover, prime placement) featuring color reproductions of official Rhodesian National Army recruitment posters on a gratis basis and interviews with individuals like Major Nick Lamprecht, former Rhodesian National Army recruitment Officer. Earlier, he financed the start-up of his magazine through the selling of “overseas employment opportunity packets”- consisting of enlistment materials for the armies of Rhodesia and Oman - through classified ads run in periodicals such as Shotgun News.

Despite the apparent conflict with official U.S. policy inherent in such activities-the United States was supposedly engaged in a formal sanctioning of Rhodesia at the very time Brown was most busily promoting military service there-he has suffered no adverse consequences as a result of his conduct. In part, this may be due to a wide-spread public impression that the man is more buffoon than menace.

(...) A key part of one side of US involvement in the Rhodesian war (the political involvement will be dealt with separately) was through Soldier of Fortune magazine. (For a recent example of SOF reporting, click here for details of the movement of the RLI "Troopie" statue). Soldier of Fortune magazine, "The Journal of Professional Adventurers" was established by a retired US Lieutenant Colonel, Robert K Brown. The magazine was to claim responsibility for the majority of American mercenaries in Rhodesia, although Rhodesian recruitment efforts were always at pains to explain that "mercenaries" were not recruited, and often noted that due to the relatively low rate of pay offered there would be little financial incentive for fighting; rather, that it was the political beliefs that were to inspire the mercenaries to fight. (...)